Coolie Woman: An Odyssey of Indenture
December 4, 2013
In 1903, a young woman, alone and pregnant, sailed from India to Guiana as an indentured laborer. In her internationally-acclaimed new book, Gaiutra Bahadur embarks on a journey into the past to find her great-grandmother, excavating the repressed history of some quarter of a million other coolie women.
Bahadur spoke with Bruce Shapiro about constructing what Junot Diaz calls "An astonishing document . . . both a historical rescue mission and a profound meditation on family and womanhood."